Opening statements and witness testimonies began this week in the $50 million defamation trial between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, which is being held in the Fairfax County Circuit Court.
Depp sued Heard for libel for a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post, in which she detailed being a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Though she never named Depp, his lawyers argue that it’s clear she was writing about allegations against their relationship.
Since the Post prints in Virginia, Depp was allowed to move forward with the lawsuit in Fairfax County, rather than California — where the actors reside and where Heard’s team initially sought to have the trial.
“You’re going to see who the real Johnny Depp is — behind the fame, behind the pirate costumes,” Benjamin Rottenborn, Heard’s lawyer, said during opening statements, noting that Heard was exercising her First Amendment rights when writing the 2018 article.
One of Depp’s lawyers, Benjamin Chew, says that Heard’s op-ed is a prime example of “defamation by implication.” Camille Vasquez, another of Depp’s lawyers, says that Heard has been lying about being abused from the get-go.
“She can’t back down. She has been living and breathing this lie for years,” Vasquez said. “She’s going to give the performance of a lifetime in this courtroom.”
Depp lost starring roles in the Fantastic Beasts and Pirates of the Caribbean films following the allegations and has blamed Heard for his career stifling in court filings. Rottenborn said this is because of his abuse of drinking and drugs, and is also why the actor has no credibility when he denies abusing Heard.
Depp’s older sister, Christi Dembrowski, testified Tuesday as the first witness, saying that the family has a history of experiencing abuse. She says Depp’s mother abused them in their youth, often throwing objects and beating them with a switch.
Dembrowski notes that Depp tried to “keep the peace” when their mother became violent, often hiding elsewhere. She says that she saw similar patterns in Depp’s relationship with Heard and would book an extra hotel room for Depp on trips — in case he wanted to hide somewhere if Heard started a fight.
The star’s sister also noted that she and Depp vowed to each other to never create the same difficult environment their mother had.
“As we were older, we decided that once we had our own home, that we were never going to repeat in our own home anything similar to our childhood,” she said.
Dembrowski was unwilling to acknowledge concerns about Depp’s drug use but says that she recalls Heard insulting him, calling him an “old fat man” and mocking his style after learning that Dior had asked the star to join their advertising campaign.
Heard and Depp are both expected to testify in the trial, along with actors James Franco and Paul Bettany and tech mogul Elon Musk.
Feature image, Reuters/Yara Nardi – stock.adobe.com
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